


Love Is All You'll See

by spoowriterfic



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 02:27:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21979855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoowriterfic/pseuds/spoowriterfic
Summary: A week after Nicole first tells Waverly what happened to her aunt and uncle, the nightmares come back.Kind of a companion piece to my earlier story "The Morning After," but it can be read separately as the only connections really are a thematic similarity and a one-line reference.
Relationships: Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 2
Kudos: 93





	Love Is All You'll See

**Author's Note:**

> Every time I think I have nothing more to say until new episodes air, something niggles in my brain and I end up proving myself wrong.
> 
> In this case: I think an under-discussed aspect of Nicole's character is that she really doesn't have THAT different of a past than Waverly: she's lost family members (to violence), she's had emotionally and physically absent family members, and she experienced a traumatic event at a young age.
> 
> Honestly, it's been long enough now that I'm not sure a spoiler warning is needed, but just in case: this is set during season 3, and the last scene takes place in a hypothetical post-season-three-finale future.

It takes a week for the nightmares to come back.

A week after they bury Dolls.

A week after she _says the words_.

After she puts it out there…into the universe…for the very first time.

It wasn’t a fire.

It was a massacre.

It was a massacre inspired by – in honor of; in fealty to – the same demon that cursed Waverly’s family.

A massacre she survived.

A massacre her aunt and uncle _didn’t_.

It takes a week.

A week after she broke down in front of Waverly.

A week after Waverly asked Nicole to let her be strong.

A week.

It takes just a week for the nightmares to come back.

And when they do…

…she’s not ready for them.

It was different – telling Dolls. She could be more…clinical. More removed from what happened. “I know the name Bulshar,” she’d said. “I think…I think my aunt and uncle died because of him.”

Telling Waverly is…different.

And it makes the nightmares different too.

Because they’re…they’re _realer_ , somehow. More vivid. Louder, in her head. Louder when she wakes up, too. As if saying it aloud has brought the reality crashing down on her in a way it never really had before.

In a way she’d never really _let_ it before.

At least not since the first month or so after the massacre. She’d woken up in a cold sweat each night after her parents sent their neighbor to pick her up, though after being rebuffed by her parents as ‘being ridiculous’ on the first night after they’d gotten home, she’d suffered in silence in her bedroom, clutching a stuffed dog named Spotty that her aunt and uncle had given her for her first birthday.

(She may or may not still have that stuffed dog sitting on the top shelf of her closet, safe from CJ’s rogue claws and overenthusiastic grooming.)

Saying it breaks through a wall she’d put up twenty years ago like it’s nothing.

Like it’s _nothing_.

* * *

“Nicole!”

Waverly’s voice is sharp, strained, and her hands are pressed against Nicole’s cheeks as though she –

Nicole’s eyes snap open.

She knows the nightmares have been worse, but it’s never been like this before. Waverly had said, “I’ve heard them” but they’ve never been bad enough before for Waverly to try to wake her up out of one.

She sees Waverly looking down at her, worried, tears building in the corner of her eyes, but all she can hear is echoed screams and the frantic pounding of her heart.

She swears she smells blood.

Waverly sighs in relief, pressing her forehead to Nicole’s, but when Nicole remains silent, she pulls back, worried. “Baby…?”

Nicole wants to reassure her. She does. That’s what she _does_ when Waverly has that little wrinkle in her forehead. She opens her mouth to say, “I’m okay,” but to her horror what comes out instead is a sound halfway between a moan and a sob and the next thing she knows, Waverly is wrapped around her, holding her close as she cries.

She presses her ear to Waverly’s heart, desperate to drown out the noise in her head, but still all she can hear is screams.

She realizes, perhaps for the first time in a conscious way, that two of those screams belonged to people she loved.

People who had loved _her_ the way she thought her parents were supposed to.

People who _died_ while she hid in a canoe.

People who died screaming.

“Don’t leave me,” she moans into Waverly’s body, half to her long-gone family and half to the woman whose arms are the only things holding her sanity together here in the dark, quiet hours of a winter’s night.

“Never,” Waverly whispers into her ear.

Nicole immediately regrets her words. _I didn’t mean to ask that of you_ , she means to say. It’s Waverly’s decision – now, and always – to stay or go.

And not only that: _You can’t promise that_ , Nicole _wants_ to say. Her aunt and uncle had left. Her parents had never been there in the first place – not really. And this is Purgatory – where they seem to be on the edge of an apocalypse every week.

She opens her mouth, and again what comes out is a desperate plea: “Don’t ever leave me.”

It’s like they’re in some sort of surreal alternate dimension; it’s as though time has stopped around them and given her this moment to be vulnerable.

“Please, Waverly. Please don’t leave me.”

“Hey,” Waverly whispers, pulling back to make eye contact. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Nicole doesn’t know what to say to that.

But then: “I can hear them screaming,” she says, searching Waverly’s eyes for answers she knows Waverly doesn’t have.

“Your aunt and uncle?”

Nicole nods, then shrugs. “All of them. But yeah.”

Waverly strokes her cheeks, running her thumbs along Nicole’s jaw. “They didn’t _want_ to go. They didn’t want to leave you.”

There’s _years_ of convincing herself of that in Waverly’s eyes.

And there’s the doubt left by Michelle’s leaving. That too.

Any other night, Nicole would have the words to soothe those wounds.

Tonight, she can’t find the words.

She can’t find _any_ words.

She just pulls Waverly close and buries her face into the hollow between her neck and shoulders. And lets Waverly hold her.

* * *

Waverly exhales shakily as Nicole finally – finally – slips back into sleep but she continues slowly, rhythmically stroking her hair back for another ten minutes afterwards.

She’s gotten a glimpse into a side of Nicole tonight that she’s not sure Nicole was ready for her to see.

And, yet, Waverly is grateful that she got to see it anyway, because it explains so much.

It explains how Nicole understands, instinctively, Waverly’s fear of abandonment. It’s because _she’s_ been abandoned, over and over and over, throughout her own life.

Physically _and_ emotionally – just like Waverly.

She knows that if Wynonna were here, she’d make a joke about Nicole marrying Shae in Vegas just to make sure she wouldn’t leave her.

Instead, Waverly just files away her new understanding of the recesses of Nicole’s psyche and pulls her close.

But she moves too fast, and Nicole snaps awake again with a gasp.

“Sorry,” Waverly whispers. Nicole shakes her head, and Waverly resumes stroking her hair. “What can I do, sweetie-pie?”

“Sing for me?” Nicole asks, eyes still haunted as she presses her ear again over Waverly’s heart.

Waverly smiles. To say she’s scared of singing in public is an understatement – at least when she doesn’t have tentacle goo pushing her past her comfort zone if only to delight in her terror.

But this isn’t in public.

This is with Nicole.

_Alone_ with Nicole.

There is no safer place _anywhere_ than alone with Nicole.

Sing for her?

Drown out whatever chaos is still raging in her head? Chaos she can see in her eyes, in the shaking of her hands, in the desperate grip Nicole has around her waist?

Waverly can do that.

It only takes a few moments to think of the perfect song.

“This used to be in the jukebox at Shorty’s; Gus pretended to hate it but she never took it out either,” she begins by way of introduction before she scoots down in bed, pulling Nicole close, and singing, “ _I’ve never been so sure about anything before / But this lovin’ feelin’s gonna be a feelin’ I feel forevermore / Lookin’ in your eyes, tomorrow’s all I see_ ….”

* * *

Later, much later, after the Garden, Wynonna will tell her through tears as she holds her so tightly that it’s almost painful, “I told Nicole for you. That you love her. Like you asked me to.”

And Waverly will shake her head sadly, and will say, “I wanted you to tell her I was sorry. For leaving her.”

And then Wynonna will let go – reluctantly, but still – and will gently shove her towards Nicole, whose eyes are wide and filled with rare tears as she stands frozen in front of them – as though she’s afraid she’s caught in a dream and any movement might jolt her awake out of it.

Nicole will gasp once, will shake and nearly collapse as they finally – _finally_ – touch.

And Waverly will hold her close and will whisper in her ear, “I’m never, ever leaving again, okay? I promise.”

But Nicole, world weary and a little jaded by all Purgatory has thrown at her, will shake her head and choke out, “You can’t…. Just…promise to…. Just take me with you. Please.”

Waverly will catch Wynonna’s eye and stare her into silence before she looks back up into Nicole’s eyes and whispers, “ _Always_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Uh...I'm sorry? I know that was kind of heavy.
> 
> I have a Spotty. My dad gave him to me when I was a baby. He's still on top of the bookshelves in my bedroom. 
> 
> The song Waverly sings is "Savin' Forever For You" by Shanice, a one hit wonder from my high school days (Hi, I am an Old). You can listen to the song here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hvdM-ZR-bA) and in my non-existent spare time, I've been toying with the idea of making a fanvid to the song (it's been probably a literal decade since I even tried such a thing).


End file.
